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Monday, June 5, 2017

The Pentecost Conspiracy

Two lovely sermons yesterday, heard by me.

One introduced an idea I had not heard previously. That Pentecost is God's conspiracy with us. To conspire is to breath with, and in the Holy Spirit, God is breathing with us, our breathe one with God's breathe. This is good conspiracy. Of course most uses of the word "conspiracy" today have a negative connotation: people plotting to overthrow the established order of things.

Speaking of which, overnight we have another act of terrorism in the UK. Thoughtful words on this come from John Schindler who argues that what Britain is facing is not terrorism but "a protracted insurgency."

And we need thoughtfulness as Christians. When Pentecost marked the end of the "Thy Kingdom Come" period of intensive praying from Ascension to Pentecost, where is God when the advance of another kingdom is made visible in the rivers of blood flowing on the streets of London?

What is God saying to us in such times about the advance of the kingdom? Such advance is both a matter of praying as though everything depends on God and acting (love, justice, peace-making) as though everything depends on us. Are we being challenged to act differently than we have been?

What is the breathe of God breathing into us in our crazy world today?

It is evolving into a civil war. New Zealand should learn the lesson. Don't import the problem through soft-headed thinking and emotional appeals to help refugees. Refugees are best helped in their own region.

Although it's true that the IRA had clear cut political aim, the general population experienced living with a comparable level of threat as exists today (look up the details on google). Large numbers of civilian casualties occurred. Yet people went about their business - sometimes being herded out of railway stations because of bomb threats but continuing their journeys afterward and putting up with being late. I hope they can show the same resilience now. It's pretty obvious that vast numbers of British Muslims don't want to live under Isis, and don't want to be accidentally mowed down or blown up by terrorists. I think the best hope is that the different communities can unite in a common rejection of violence and a common willingness to endure for the course of this insurgency, however long it lasts. Rhys

Thanks RhysI think insurgency is a helpful term (the more I think about it).It focuses our attention on whom the insurgents might be and whether we can overcome them.Taking into account the recent event in Melbourne, we are seeing a pattern whereby ISIS either plans or claims the event, but the participant is not necessarily a sane, clean living adherent of the faith. Rather a person with a criminal record, perhaps a bit or quite a bit mixed up about what Islam actually means, maybe even on drugs.Not exactly a representative sample of committed Muslims, intent on a peaceable way of life which, I continue to note, is the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world.We need to voercome the insurgents, not the whole of Islam.

I think you know enough about the dreadful experience of Christians in Egypt to speak so simplistically. Modern radical Islam goes back to Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood - that gang that Obama was so keen on which paralysed the country and had to be rooted out by the Egyptian Army. ISIS is only the latest manifestation of an ideology that pops up under different names - Al Qaeda, Al Mujaharoun, Khomeini's revolution etc. The progressive removal of non-Muslims or their subjugation into dhimmitude is always the political goal of Muslims. Islam *does need to be overcome - by the name and gospel of Jesus Christ. How many Anglican bishops believe this?

While "insurgencies" can certainly go on for a long time, for example The Western Sahara, the term "civil war" implies a deeper more protracted nature to the conflict. And I strongly suspect radical Islam will be with us for a good few years into this century ...

As Steve Bell noted in his blog and as Nabeel notes in his books after the own examination into the faith of his birth, there is a call to jihad within the core doctrine of Islam. However, with the multiple interpretations of the Quran and the fact that it is the interpretations rather than the core text itself that many Muslims know, understand and practice, much of what the average Muslim follows I imagine would fall into the category of decent living. And of course like many labelled Christian, for many the adherence to their faith will be nominal, celebrating the big festivals etc but otherwise living a secular life.

There is little debate the radical 'arm' of Islam is a threat. And I guess it could be compared to the IRA, because like nationalism, it gets people to buy into an ideology they are willing to kill for. As opposed to the Gospel, a way of life where people of strong faith are prepared to lay down their own lives for others. The encouraging aspect is the number of Muslim people who are being drawn now to Isa (Christ) and becoming apostles in their own communities. Read, A wind in the House of Islam. And of course for many a law abiding Muslim what they see being done in the name of their faith is going to cause them to be grieved and question it.

As for refugees are the problem. I would ask the question, are the second generation immigrants who are arrested for the crimes we see happening now refugees or the children of economic immigrants? Because there is a danger in inadvertently labelling those most in need as criminals without a trial so to speak, to turn away those in need out of fear rather than fact, simply because it is easier if one 'group' can be the problem. I tend to agree with the turn the blind eye approach to Saudi Arabia, I was surprised a year or so ago that the NZ gov't allowed Saudi representatives to come and 'take home' a student who had become a Christian in NZ and was in hiding, had been granted refugee status, and feared for his life should he return back to Saudi Arabia. Was it because of the money we get from the Saudi government to allow their citizens to study here?

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Anglican Down Under

Welcome to this blog on Anglican, theological, biblical and other matters, mostly missional or liturgical (but I reserve the right to write about cricket and politics). It is grounded in some islands at the bottom of the world which, together with a large island to our west, constitute fabulous Down Under.

I work for the Diocese of Christchurch and for Theology House, Christchurch, NZ. Views expressed here are not necessarily the views of either organisation. But I harbour the hope that what I say here is helpful to those with whom I am in fellowship because of these two entities!

ACANZP

ACANZP stands for Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. In Aotearoa New Zealand this church is also known as Te Haahi Mihinare - The Missionary Church. (I work in ministry training and theological education in this church as Director of Education and Director of Theology House in the Diocese of Christchurch. Views expressed here are personal and not those of the Diocese, but the intent is not to express any personal views contradictory of the Diocese's).

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Show us anything clearly set forth in Holy Scripture that we do not teach and we will teach it. Show us anything in our teaching or practice is clearly contrary to Holy Scripture, and we will abandon it.

Stephen Neill

For the glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the glory of humanity is the vision of God.

St Irenaeus

Fundamentally the Gospel is obsessed with the idea of the unity of human society.

Masure

We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion, but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.

Bishop Jewel

Preachers shall behave themselves modestly and soberly in every department of their life. But especially shall they see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon, which they would have religiously held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine.

Canon 6 from the 1571 Bishop’s Convocation

Kent: "See better, Lear, and let me still remain."

William Shakespeare

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear.

Wittgenstein

Justice is eternal, and doesn't depend at all on human conventions.

Montesquieu

The real challenge of Islam to Western intellectual discourse is for us to ask ourselves whether our unprecedented modern experiment of conducting political life with no transcendent values is really working out as well as we once hoped.

Harvey Cox

The long-term happiness of a society depends on how individuals behave towards each other, how families hold together, and how leaders keep the trust of people.

William Hague

Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.

John Neuhaus

To be an evangelical is not, first and foremost, about doctrinal correctness, but about a passion for the gospel of salvation from sin through Christ for eternity.

John Richardson

Neither may we ... lightly esteem what hath been allowed as fit in the judgement of antiquity, and by the long continued practice of the whole church; from which unnecessarily to swerve, experience hath never as yet found it safe.

Richard Hooker (Lawes, V.7.1)

The function of the Christian canon was to separate the apostolic witness from the ongoing tradition of the church, whose truth was continually in need of being tested by the apostolic faith.

Brevard S. Childs

Every word of God proves true. (Proverbs 30:5)

If the people of this religion are asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them with this question. They forbid rational speculation, and strive to kill their adversaries. This is why truth became thoroughly silenced and concealed.

Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi

Change comes through ordinary working people organising themselves to struggle for a better world day in, day out.

Morning Star newspaper editorial Tuesday 5 May 2015

"In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl."

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

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For people for whom NZ English is not their native tongue here are some translations of regular Maori words used here or in linked articles: Aotearoa: name for New Zealand; aroha: love; Ariki: lord; Atua: God; hui: gathering, assembly, conference; hui amorangi: regional area under leadership of regional bishop within Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa (Diocese of Aotearoa); kai: food; kai moana: sea food; Ihu: Jesus; iwi: tribe; Karaiti: Christ; Kotahitanga/Te Kotahitanga: within ACANZP, the council responsible for drawing together the hopes and aspirations of the three tikanga for theological education and ministry training and transforming them into policy and into recommendations to the St John's College Trust Board for expenditure of educational funds; also the Board of Governors of St John's College (the primary, but not the only object of SJCTB expenditure); koha: gift, responsive gift to hospitality offered; mana: power, respect, honour; marae: community meeting area, including meeting hall and dining room; mihi: speech; moana: sea, ocean; pihopa: bishop; pihopatanga: bishopric, diocese; powhiri: welcome ceremony; rangimarie: peace; tangata: people; tangi: funeral; taonga: treasure; tikanga: culture, cultural stream, within ACANZP: one of the three strands, Maori [Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa], Pakeha [NZ Dioceses], or Pasefika (Diocese of Polynesia) which make up our whole church under the authority of General Synod while being self-governing for many aspects of church life in each of the tikanga; waiata: song; wairua: spirit; Wairua Tapu: Holy Spirit; waka: canoe; whanau: family, extended family.